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“There is no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of gun violence.” – Jerry Poje, homelessness advocate, via email blast GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION DAY OF ACTION [after the jump].

 

———- Forwarded message ———-

From: John Horejsi ‪<[email protected]>‬

Date: Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 1:48 PM

Subject: 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington/GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION DAY OF ACTION

To:

SALT Advocates:

Please be responsive! Show your support by attending!  john

Greetings all, 

Please join many other Gun Violence Prevention Group on the Mall on Saturday.

There no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of gun violence.

– Jerry Poje

 

From: Joanna Simon ‪<[email protected]>

LARGE TURNOUT EXPECTED FOR PROTEST AT NRA IN FAIRFAX

August 21st – GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION DAY OF ACTION

Wednesday Aug 21 is a day of action to demand legislative support for gun violence prevention.  Join Organizing for Action (OFA) at 7:00 PM at the NRA Headquarters building for a Protest against the NRA’s nefarious actions to prevent sensible and reasonable limits on gun usage—continuing the tragic loss of lives resulting from gun accidents, felons who shouldn’t have access to guns in the first place (we need universal background checks NOW, and those who are mentally ill.

Bring your protest signs, or use ours.  Make up your own chants and we’ll join in.  Let’s let the NRA and Northern VA know that we want sensible gun reform laws NOW.

NRA Headquarters Building:

11250 Waples Mill Rd.

Fairfax, VA 22030

*********************************************************

To those who signed up via UUCF to be at the 50th Anniversary March on Washington this coming Saturday, 24 Aug:

  • If you are planning to carpool from UUCF to the Vienna Metro, please plan to leave the church by 9:30 a.m.  If you need a ride, please let folks on this list know.
  • Whatever way you are planning to get to the March, please be at the Smithsonian Metro entrance by 11 a.m.  Look for the UUCF banner.
  • We will try to join other UUs where All Souls UU Church is meeting on the north side of the Reflecting Pool.   There will be a big Standing on the Side of Love banner at the spot.  Map below [I hope it comes out in the email!]
  • It is just fine if you are not able or do not wish to join other UUs at the All Souls site.   Wherever you are at the March is OK!
  • It is possible that even if you want to join the All Souls UU group, you may not be able to because the police plan to limit the number of people in any one location.
  • For those who wish to get to the Mall earlier, please know that various activities [speeches et al] are planned beginning at 8 a.m.

Below are links to three items that add to our understanding of the March and its significance.  One is a You Tube of President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 talk to Congress on the Voting Rights Act.  The other two recent articles from The Nation magazine.

Also below is an email from Martina Leinz of the Million Mom March sent earlier today with up-to-date information about the March schedule of events.

Finally, if anyone has additional information about the March, or suggestions, or corrections to this email, please do send an email to the group.

Bob Tripp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWn89vGJys

http://www.thenation.com/article/175757/time-march-washington-again#axzz2cNZbUmoe)

http://www.thenation.com/print/article/175764/misremembering-i-have-dream#axzz2cNZbUmoe.

From Martina:

Hi All –

I just got off the phone with one of the key partners for the March on Saturday and have received updated information on the schedule of events.   The program begins at 8:00 a.m. at the Lincoln Memorial with many speeches planned.   At 2:00 p.m., (not at noon), we will march from the Lincoln Memorial to the MLK Memorial where they will be a short program before the event concludes and people disperse.

For signage, the Brady Campaign has asked that we speak with a unified voice to have greater impact and they would like us all to carry signs that they have had printed that say “Voices Against Violence.”   The signs will be available for pick up beginning at 7:30 and throughout the day at the large flagpole area just north of the WWII Memorial on 17th street NW, South of Constitution Ave.  One of my MMM colleagues, Carole Stiller, is the designated “Comfort Captain” and will be stationed here all day and will hand out signs.

For those of you planning to assist me with the gathering of signatures for the Voices Against Violence effort, we are meeting at the flagpoles on the north side of the WW II Memorial at 7:30 a.m.  There will be a brief training session and then we will break into groups.  If you want to assist in this effort and have not yet signed up, please contact Katie Simon directly at 202-643-6219 or e-mail her at mailto:[email protected]  Everyone who officially registers with Katie will receive a Voices Against Violence t-shirt to wear.

All best,

Martina

John Horejsi

SALT Coordinator

[email protected]

 

Did you call your legislator today? Tell them to support ALL Safety Net programs.

Don’t know how? Go to http://www.s-a-l-t.org for more information.

To locate your legislator go to http://legis.state.va.us/

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93 COMMENTS

  1. Guess I missed the part of the Constitution that talkes about “the right to be free of things you are afraid of”…

    • We have rights that aren’t specifically enumerated in the Constitution. See the 9th Amendment.

      Not saying I agree with the guy…

    • I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; when they use the word “right” it means they’re complaining about something. They have the “right” to get a latte in under twenty seconds, they have a “right” to not have to stand in line at the bank, they have a “right” to not have any fears, they have a “right” for the government to take care of them, they have a “right” to not hear lawnmowers on their day off when they want to sleep in. None of those are actually rights, they are things those people think they are entitled to receive.

      But this is all rather moot because the literal “right” he is asking for is actually provided by the Second Amendment. Now the problem is that’s not the “right” he’s asking for, he’s actually asking for there to be no crazy people or criminals with guns ever again, we all know that to be an impossibility.

    • “DAMMIT, I have a RIGHT to be a total tool!”

      NO, your “right” to toolhood DOES NOT obviate my right to protect myself from the criminals you so blithely enable.

  2. I could not agree more with the comment: “There is no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of gun violence.”

    That is precisely why I keep and bear arms.

    • I don’t know who said it, but “Convince a slave that he is free and he will gladly give his life fighting for his slavery.”

  3. What exact part of “nature” abhors violence.

    I thought it was a vacuum.

    Generally where violence is not, nature will make it so.

    • Indeed Jake. Consider this:

      “The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
      ― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life

      That last line is the giveaway, the universe is pitiless in it’s indifference to us and everything else. Violence is the normal way of things in nature. It requires a massive (and arbitrary) sense of self importance and more than a little arrogance to think that humans are so much different than every other living thing that the laws of nature don’t apply to us.

      Then again, a massive, arbitrary sense of self importance and more than a little arrogance are the hallmarks of the sort of person who would capriciously deny others their rights and liberties.

      • Ah, but I believe the universe has an awareness of it self as god and of us as children of that God. And that God is love.

        But God so loved us that we were given free will to follow the teachings and the laws of God, or not.

        So when we followed the teachings of God as a country and a people we had the gift of freedom and prosperity unrivaled in the history of the world and we were the hope of the world as a beacon of freedom and opportunity that most people around the world wished they could come to America and many died attempting to come here.

        Now as the securalist, humanist progressive belief becomes the norm, we have fallen into a dark pit of despair and nihilistic self loathing, as a country and a people; supporting the “right” to murder unborn children and the promotion of a gangster culture as something to be admired and emulated.

        There is a price to pay when a people no longer follow the laws of God, (which is love,) so when people no longer are guided by love, they are consumed with hate, self-loathing and fear. And if you hate yourself, why would believe in protecting yourself, you would rather be abused, violated and murdered as only your just due. This is why liberal/progressives don’t believe in protecting their life or their culture, they hate themselves too much.

        This is the message of humanism/ liberal/ progressivism.

      • Just prior to his death Dawkins said, “I cannot say with certainty that there is no God.” I sincerely hope that the Lord God had mercy on his soul. Couple million years in purgatory for sure but eventual salvation after the cleansing.

  4. When will they realize that the only way to be free from the fear of “gun” violence is to have the means to protect yourself from it?

    • Cluster them together, fifty feet away with a telephoto, wide aperture… Jesus there’s like a million people here! Americans must really hate guns!

  5. Add “standing on the side of love” to patriotism, for the children etc., “is the last refuge of scoundrels” category.

  6. “There is no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of gun violence.” – Jerry Poje

    First of all, there is no such thing as a civil right to be free of fear of anything. People have lots of fears and trying to cater to everyone is impossible.

    More importantly, Mr. Poje is demanding that everyone else do something to effect his claimed “civil right” — namely that everyone gives up personal property and that everyone gives up the liberty to take their personal property anywhere that they choose to carry it. That is wrong, plain and simple.

    If I were afraid of falling trees, can I demand that all of my neighbors — in fact my entire state — cut down every tree? If I were afraid of spiders, can I demand that my entire state spray poison everywhere to kill all spiders? Of course not. Falling trees and spiders kill people every year … and yet that is not a reason to eliminate trees or spiders. And it is just as wrong when a person demands that everyone relinquish their firearms, regardless of the fact that criminals misuse firearms to harm people.

  7. I am more interested in their purported protest yesterday in front of the NRA HQ. Any news??

    Clearly it was an epic fail, otherwise we would have seen pictures. In most cases like this, I would have advised the NRA to turn on the fire hoses and release the hounds, but . . . something tells me the sprinklers coming on as scheduled would be enough to turn back this “crowd”.. . . . . .

    #proudtobeNRALifeMember

  8. My fear of living with gun violence is assuaged by my M&P. Quite effectively I must add.

    Frankly, I have a fear of being run over by cars when I commute on bike. At what point does my fear become important enough to deny others the right to own a car? Nobody needs a car. This country ran just fine before they were invented. So how about my essential civil right to live without fear of being run over?

  9. Guys.

    Guys guys guys guys guys.

    We have the complete itinerary for the entire event. Meeting place, route, destination, time. DC/VA Area Peeps need to be trollin this one hard. If they have 6, we should have 7. ‘Murica

  10. “Everyone who officially registers with Katie will receive a Voices Against Violence t-shirt to wear.”

    even better – maybe we can get a bunch of free t-shirts and hand them out to CCW classes and take lots of pics??

  11. Why even pander to these miss-the-60’s-so-bad-it-makes-their-tiedye-cry dipsh1ts by posting their events on this site?

    • First, the head hippie says: “Bring your protest signs, or use ours. Make up your own chants and we’ll join in.”

      Then the Brady Bunch takes charge of the 1A: “For signage, the Brady Campaign has asked that we speak with a unified voice to have greater impact and they would like us all to carry signs that they have had printed that say “Voices Against Violence.”

      Next: “Bloomberg decrees all signs to be approved by, and make reference to, MAIG.”

      And the hippies quietly fade away again.

  12. The Declaration of Independence makes reference to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the Constitution acknowledges by name a number of natural rights, but nowhere is freedom from fear one of ’em.

    Heck, fear of tyrany ranked large and we were all of us urged to remain ever vigilant.

    Freedom from one or more fear(s) is neither implied in our national blueprint nor practicable.

    Fear of disease, predators with however many legs, wildfire and so on are pretty much inextricable from the human condition, and were if anything more so back in the early days.

    Only one fear — apart from that of foreign war or large scale systemic failure — is more pronounced than it was 200+ years ago, and that is fear of some thug kicking in ones door with a high probability of the homeowner being unable to effectively resist.

    We are become largely a nation of domesticated animals, neither free nor particularly concerned with freedom so long as we have access to shiny stuff and the poop goes away when we flush.

    As regards “gun violence,” we’ve no “right” to not be subject to it, but we most certainly have the right to meet it head on with equal per capita force and through greater numbers cauterize the wound.

    That’s what an armed society is: a hot iron, maintained ever ready. We cannot prevent every school shooting, but we can rapidly expunge the shooter.

    Disarmament is a particularly ineffective vaccine, especially when combined with out weakened immune system, generally poor health and when confronted with superbugs.

    The only viable option is to keep in shape, boost our immune systems with plenty of Vitamin G and fight off infection when it occurs.

    We will lose good people from time to time, but we will be a free people living worthwhile lives rather than herd animals merely subsisting and waiting for the cull.

    • If you read the book “Paul Revere’s Ride” — it has excepts from many of General Gage’s letters. In one particular letter in the book when he writes his superiors in England, he specifically states many of items you just listed and specifically says he will not allow the people to be undefended even if he later has to march on them later. Even General Thomas Gage believed in the right of people to defend themselves even as he was tasked to stop them.

  13. The phrase “gun violence” always irks me. It’s a way to manipulate language to mask the real issue, which is simply violence committed by bad people.

    “Fear of violence” makes at least a bit of sense. “Fear of gun violence” and not other violence is nonsensical, unless you accept the premise that “guns” are the problem, and “bad people” are NOT the problem. People committing violent acts against others with knives, baseball bats, fists, and other weapons can damage lives as much as people committing violent acts against others with guns.

    Given the fact that it is absolutely impossible to prevent bad people from obtaining guns (let alone getting knives and/or training to fight), it makes far more sense to find effective ways to defend oneself against the bad people. For many people, this means getting a firearm, receiving training, and practicing so that one is competent in its use.

    For me, the more I practice with my firearm, the less “fear of gun violence” I have, because I know I’m better able to defend myself against bad people.

    • I believe their own choice of language simply demonstrates exactly what it is that motivates them, a phobia. Though I don’t believe such people are being honest when they say they fear gun ‘violence’, rather that they realize the majority would see right to the irrational heart of their actual fear; guns themselves. While not universal (there are various motives for civilian disarmament, all of them disguised, twisted or pathological) such an unreasoning fear of guns is often demonstrated openly.

      People admit to fearing guns based on how they look rather than their function or capabilities. They’re unable to assimilate evidence that counters their belief that guns are inherently bad. The language they choose is perhaps sometimes calculated but I think that it mostly simply reveals their true feelings; It’s no different than someone who suffers from ophiophobia (fear of snakes) insisting that even those snakes that are absolutely harmless to humans and even beneficial snakes be destroyed or removed.

      Phobias are always irrational by definition. We would do well to remember that such people may make at least seemingly reasonable rationalizations for their position, but rationalizations are all they are. Underneath is a pathological, unreasoning fear that is better dealt with via therapy than either debate or the legislature.

      • I maintain they recognize the violence in themselves, at least at some level. They’re against guns because guns are hammers, and they know if they had one, they’d seek out a nail, or three.

        Their biggest problem is that they project their own violent natures on others. They can’t grasp that other people aren’t like them.

  14. From Joanna Simon; ” We need universal back ground checks NOW and those that are mentally I’ll”!

    I hate to tell you Joanna, but you have plenty of those are in your anti-gun movement now.

    To actually believe that gun free zones protect you from a mad man with a gun; that any law will stop a criminal from committing murder with whatever tool is available, including thier hands and feet is delusional to down right insane.

  15. Since its a constitutional right to be free of things that scare you (allegedly), I would like Steven King drawn and quartered, all copies of “It” destroyed, and every clown to be rounded up and destroyed. Then I won’t have to be freaked the f@ck out anymore when I have flashbacks of looking at Pennywise’s dead lights…

  16. Sometimes I think to myself that if I could take out these anti gun hippies in a fair fistfight, then there are a whole lot of criminals roaming the streets who could do exactly the same thing. While I have moral safeguards, and do not engage in physical confrontations unless it is a last resort, criminals do not. They simply see weaklings such as this fellow as naive targets of opportunity.

  17. Every single one of you should be wholeheartedly against gun violence. Am I missing something here?

    Why, exactly, are you for violence committed to guns? Have you no conscience? Have you no soul? Maybe your bluing pen or duracoat is better than mine.

    It’s bad enough there’s holster wear and scuff marks from “unknown” incidents. But to cause violence to guns… There’s a special place for you in hell. You monster!

  18. Funny how if you take the word “gun” out of that statement – “There is no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of violence.” – it suddenly becomes and argument against gun control.

    I never understood why so many people would rather be repeatedly hit in the head with a baseball bat than shot. I’m OK with violence, just not GUN violence. Makes no sense to me.

    • I had a very disturbing conversation with an individual yesterday who advocated all kinds of crazy gun control, people registering programs, and all sorts of 1984 style stuff to “save lives”. I then asked if he wanted to get rid of all of this violence why not go to all the poor, crime ridden neighborhoods and sterilize the poor so they can’t propegate more little monsters. This person agreed sincerely with SS style stuff that I had brought up to point out how ridiculous his previous proposals were. My mind shut down at that point. Oh, and that conversation started off “first of all, me and my family are die hard liberals”.

      • Brain dead liberals more like. I can assure you the Stasi will NOT come after you with bats. I can’t remember if it was Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, but one of those two said that those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.

  19. I TOTALLY agree with this jerk, that is WHY I OWN AND CARRY A FIREARM. I have a right to live free of gun violence, so I WILL drop the first ingrate that pulls a gun on me or my family.
    Robert Seddon

    • I had a very disturbing conversation with an individual yesterday who advocated all kinds of crazy gun control, people registering programs, and all sorts of 1984 style stuff to “save lives”. I then asked if he wanted to get rid of all of this violence why not go to all the poor, crime ridden neighborhoods and sterilize the poor so they can’t propegate more little monsters. This person agreed sincerely with SS style stuff that I had brought up to point out how ridiculous his previous proposals were. My mind shut down at that point. Oh, and that conversation started off “first of all, me and my family are die hard liberals”.

  20. While I am not sure why his “right” specifies “gun violence”, rather than just violence, I actually agree with the quote. But unlike him, I do not suffer from the delusion that law abiding gun-owners are threatening that so called “right”. Nor do I believe that preventing the law abiding from exercising their “rights” will deter criminals from inflicting ANY kind of violence on mine or anyone else’s person.

    This kind of crap is about the warm tickly feeling that standing in a crowd of sycophants gets you – its circular socio-political masturbation.

  21. Here, let me help you with that.

    “There is no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of gun violence.”

    That’s better.

    • @ Ardent waaay above:

      “That last line is the giveaway, the universe is pitiless in it’s indifference to us and everything else. Violence is the normal way of things in nature. It requires a massive (and arbitrary) sense of self importance and more than a little arrogance to think that humans are so much different than every other living thing that the laws of nature don’t apply to us.

      Then again, a massive, arbitrary sense of self importance and more than a little arrogance are the hallmarks of the sort of person who would capriciously deny others their rights and liberties.”

      –Careful, you might hurt the unicorns’ feelings.

  22. If I lived in Washington it would be fun to greet these idiots with a huge sign…

    Side A:
    Text: Malcolm X preferred 30 round mags with his M1 carbine
    Photo: Malcolm and his gun ==> http://lonsberry.com/writings.cfm?story=3503

    Side B:
    Text: 1964(?) Democratic racists deny MLK a concealed carry permit…. 2013 Bloomberg would do the same
    Photo: A big “DENIED” sysmbol

  23. did the protest at the NRA HQ actually happen?” no media reports, so i am guessing not many people showed up at 7pm on a wednesday?

  24. My wife grew up in L.A.’s Rampart district (home to a crack house on every corner and a transvestite hooker on every block). Aside of the constant harassment she endured as the only white and natural blond for miles, she recounts times when she was followed, peeped, cornered, flashed and groped by the homeless people as she made her way through the neighborhood.
    Then, there was the time when a homeless man pulled a gun on her and her dog when she had taken it out to take care of its physiological necessities….

  25. There is no way the government can keep you free from fear of gun violence, because fear is something that goes on inside your head and isn’t necessarily rational. My first wife didn’t like to swim in hotel swimming pools for fear of sharks. Seriously, sharks. She knew it was irrational, but not even the thousand miles of dry land separating this one indoor man-made pond from the nearest ocean was enough to keep her free from a fear of sharks.

    Not that the government would be inclined to allay your fears if they could. A sense of security doesn’t put you in the proper frame of mind for their purposes.

  26. Advocates Homelesses??? I loose track of the rules on these things with all the changes. Is being homeless currently genetic or a “lfestyle choice”.. Most would consider being homeless to be bad.

  27. “There is no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of gun violence.”

    I did a double-take when I read this. “Huh?” Honestly, what causes Mr. Poje to meekly sign a traffic citation that he believes is unjustified? Why does he pay taxes he knows will pay for blowing up some eight-year-old in Yemen? Only one thing causes these, the threat of violence implemented, often enough, by means of a gun. The fear of violence using a gun is what causes tax payments, what keeps the robber out of the jewelry store most of the time, and insures that non-government-run gambling dens don’t put up a neon welcome sign. And lest Mr. Poje would say that fear of prison time is what accomplishes these things, I would simply point out that it is the threat of violence by gun which forces a man to enter the prison… that keeps the peace. And discourages the homeless, usually, from escalating their plea for spare change to an insistence that I hand over my wallet. “Freedom from threat of gun violence” indeed. What blather.

  28. There’s no natural right to live without fear. Fear is a motivator. Fear for our families, is why we’ll go to any lengths to protect them. Not just a motivator, it’s a natural motivator. That’s why we talk about fight-or-flight responses in biology.

    “However, living in fear of stabbing, bludgeoning, getting run over by a car, I’M FINE WITH THAT!”

  29. “There is no more essential civil right than to live free of the fear of gun violence.”

    That’s why I avoid groups of black youths. Pretty easy when you think about it. Plus, it’s free and I can do it without denying anybody else of their rights.

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